RAPPORT
like to propose that TE occurs in an institution when individual teaching practices are judged to be ( a ) aligned to the clear purposes , ( b ) are effective in achieving their goals , and ( c ) are regularly revised and improved .
The first element refers to the alignment that must exist between individual teaching practices / activities and shared goals ( e . g . learning objectives ), which in turn relate to the institutional mission , that has to various degrees the students ’ needs at the forefront ( Biggs , 1999 ). Verification of congruence ( practices to goals ) and also coherence ( goals to mission ) are routinely carried out during reviews or audits , mostly as paper-based exercises , but can include observations of practice . Here , the picture that comes to mind is that of a system that does what it is meant to do because each of its components behaves as expected . Perhaps a high-quality clockwork mechanism is an appropriate metaphor .
A second element refers to effectiveness / impact of an institution , department or an individual tutor . In one sense , this may be understood to be fulfilled where practices are applied which achieve the goals proposed . Beyond the existence of practices designed to deliver the specified goals , this requires that the practices actually produce the intended results . Likewise , effectiveness , in a second sense , can refer to situations where practices are adapted to ensure that they achieve the goals , entailing monitoring and readiness to modify practices where it is deemed necessary .
A third important element of excellence is critical engagement . This refers to a commitment to continuous improvement on the part of an institution and its individual members , an ongoing search to improve practices , to do things better . This notion became popular in management schools under the guise of ‘ quality circles ’ in the 1980s ( Ishikawa , 1985 ).
Finally , excellence requires validation and certification . This judgement by an auditor leads to a recognition by a community ( e . g . a professional body or an independent agency ). In HE , judgements about one ’ s quality of teaching are made by a peer who observes one deliver a lecture or a tutorial , in terms of whether it is helping the students achieve certain learning outcomes . Also , an external reviewer or team of reviewers ( e . g . from the Quality Assurance Agency or a professional ) can make more general judgements about the quality of teaching in a department or institution as a whole . The outcomes of such reviews can then be made public and be used to take corrective actions or to advertise the quality of the teaching at an institution . reviews .
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Teaching excellence in the context of HE It is our view that we need to take into account the specificity of the ( culture of ) HE sector and even of each university in order to understand what it means to assess the quality of teaching and make judgements about TE , because the goals and missions are different , a point made by Gibbs ( 2010 ), among others . It is useful , at this point , to consider different types of universities , in a similar way as Professor Ron Barnett has done ( Barnett , 2011 , 2013 ), because they imply distinct appreciations of teaching excellence . Indeed , the report of the Technical Consultation on the TEF ( HoCBISC , 2016 ) talks of ‘ allow ( ing ) for diverse forms of excellence to be identified and recognised ’ ( p . 5 ). For example , teaching excellence means different things in the ‘ bureaucratic university ’ and in an ‘ entrepreneurial university ’, to use two of Barnett ’ s types . A bureaucratic university may have been the type of university most readers experienced a decade or so ago . It is one where practices are carried out by individuals according to their specified roles for which they are qualified . The performance of these practices is recorded in forms that are constantly updated and therefore , congruence can be audited at any time ( e . g . by comparing handbooks and reports ). The emphasis is not on the goals or the mission ( the ‘ why ’), but on the accuracy and currency of the documentation ( records of ‘ how ’ things are done ). This translates into a notion of teaching excellence which focussed on the production of outstanding course documentation that demonstrates how practice related to goals at the level of a course and ultimately addresses the university mission ( congruence ). Some of us may remember the frequent modifications of the forms , justified for reasons of audit and documentation , and ultimately accountability .
Similarly , we can consider the ‘ entrepreneurial university ’, which many of us find ourselves in during these more recent times . Here the concern , in increasingly ‘ competitive ’ HE market contexts , is with performance and league tables , where many universities seek to establish a recognised brand , particularly to recruit valuable international students and researchers . In this type of university , teaching occupies a certain place , perhaps way down the list under other more important aspects such as research capacity , income generation , links with industry and marketing . Therefore , teaching excellence may become a feature of a department that can be used effectively as part of its marketing strategy . In universities with a ‘ widening participation ’ agenda , student intakes are very diverse and have chequered experiences of previous education . Many non-traditional
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